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English and Creative Writing

Referencing examples - MHRA referencing.

There are two parts to referencing:

  1. Citation (in Footnote): the acknowledgement in your text, giving details of the work. The reader should be able to identify or locate the work from these details in your bibliography.
  2. Bibliography: the list of references at the end of your work. Should include the full information for your citations so readers can easily identify and locate each piece of work you have used. It is important that these are consistent, correct and complete.

Citation Footnotes - when quoting from a source or using information from that source, give full details of the page/s you are referring to in the footnote. 

Primary Sources:

pile of books

Nick Hornby, About a Boy (London: Penguin, 1998), p. 45

Sarah Waters, Affinity (London: Virago, 1999), pp. 61-63.

(NB. more than one page, therefore use pp.)

Secondary Sources:

Single author:

Graham Allen, Intertextuality (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 40. 

Edited book:

John Kucich and Dianne F. Sadoff, eds. Victorian Afterlife: Postmodern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), p. 127.

Chapter in an edited collection:

Stephen Greenblatt, 'Marlowe and the Will to Absolute Play', in New Historicism and Renaissance Drama, ed. by Richard Wilson and Richard Dutton (Harlow: Longman, 1994), p. 60. 

Bibliography - no requirement to give page numbers except if a chapter in an edited book. 

Primary Sources:

Hornby, Nick, About a Boy (London: Penguin, 1998).

Waters, Sarah, Affinity (London: Virago, 1999).

Secondary Sources:

By a Single author:

Allen, Graham, Intertextuality (London: Routledge, 2000). 

Edited book:

Kucich, John and Dianne F. Sadoff, ed. Victorian Afterlife: Postmodern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). 

Chapter in an edited collection:

Greenblatt, Stephen, 'Marlowe and the Will to Absolute Play', in New Historicism and Renaissance Drama, ed. by Richard Wilson and Richard Dutton (Harlow: Longman, 1994), pp. 57-82. 

How to reference a journal

See the English Studies & Creative Writing Guide for guidance on including a doi or web reference in your reference. 

Citation Footnotes - when quoting from a source or using information from that source, give full details of the page/s you are referring to in the footnote.

If there are up to 3 authors - give their names in the order that they are shown in the source. For 4 or more, give the name of the first author, followed by 'and others'.

Julia Miele Rodas, 'Tiny Tim, Blind Bertha and the Resistance of Miss Mowcher: Charles Dickens and Uses of Disability', Dickens Studies Annual, 34 (2004), 51-97 (pp. 60-63). 

Janet Fink and Katherine Holden, 'Pictures from the Margins of Marriage: Representations of Spinsters and Single Mothers in the mid-Victorian Novel, Inter-War Hollywood Melodrama and the British Film of the 1950s and 1960s', Gender & History, 11.2 (1999), 233-55 (p. 250). journal covers

Four or more authors

Rebecca Black and others, ‘Representations of Autism in Online Harry Potter Fanfiction’, Journal of Literacy Research, 51.1 (2019), 30–51 (p. 45). 

Bibliography

Rodas, Julia Miele, 'Tiny Tim, Blind Bertha and the Resistance of Miss Mowcher; Charles Dickens and Uses of Disability', Dickens Studies Annual, 34 (2004): 51-97.

Fink, Janet and Katherine Holden. 'Pictures from the Margins of Marriage: Representations of Spinsters and Single Mothers in the mid-Victorian Novel, Inter-War Hollywood Melodrama and the British Film of the 1950s and 1960s.' Gender & History, 11.2 (1999): 233-55.

Four or more authors

Black, Rebecca and others, ‘Representations of Autism in Online Harry Potter Fanfiction’, Journal of Literacy Research, 51.1 (2019), 30–51.

How to reference a website 

Citation Footnote

Ellen Geroux, 'Prisons in Aurora Leigh', The Victorian Web <http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/ebb/61a16.html> [accessed 3 September 2025]. 

Bibliography

Geroux, Ellen, 'Prisons in Aurora Leigh', The Victorian Web <http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/ebb/61a16.html> [accessed 3 September 2025].

Other resources

Films:

For films, the reference should include, as a minimum, title, director, production company or studio, and year of release.

The Godfather, dir. by Francis Ford Coppola (Paramount Pictures, 1972).

RefWorks

To login to RefWorks click on the RefWorks image below:

RefWorks button

RefWorks allows you to create and manage your own personal database of useful references. You can then use these to quickly compile a reference list or bibliography for your assignments. 

Click on the link below for more information, and help on using Refworks.